


Gamer

by orphan_account



Category: Devil May Cry, Final Fantasy VIII, Guitar Hero, Portal (Video Game), ReBoot (TV), 逆転裁判 | Gyakuten Saiban | Ace Attorney
Genre: F/M, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-08-09
Updated: 2009-08-09
Packaged: 2019-06-14 12:28:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,215
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15388776
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: In the timeskip during season 3, Enzo and AndrAIa survive through various games.





	Gamer

**Author's Note:**

> I originally meant this to be a two-parter, but it never went anywhere, but isn't a cliff-hanger, either. It basically just stands as a bunch of mini-ficlets strung together.

**Reboot 1: Showtime!**  
  
“Reboot!”  
  
Enzo, AndrAIa and Frisket found themselves standing outside what looked something like a bar conspicuously lacking a front sign. The city around them was barren, buildings collapsed in some places – the one before them was the most alive of the lot, soft lights emanating from the translucent front windows.  
  
Enzo's new wardrobe for the game included a ragged black cloak and a scythe; he'd gone skeletal and acquired a hunch in the reboot as well – though his newly-wounded eye was still blind. He'd been hoping that wouldn't be the case, but no such luck. He touched it, then withdrew his hand with a wince - it still stung. Frisket had grown a couple of heads and looked a lot more blue. He panted with all three of his tongues and scratched behind an ear with his back foot as Enzo glanced over at AndrAIa.  
  
She had gone bug-like in the reboot, a cross between a spider and a preying mantis. Enzo's eyes widened as he got a look at her, taking a step back. “Holy Motherboard! You look...”  
  
“...What?” AndrAIa waved her serrated pincers around in front of her, something that would have looked a lot less menacing had she still possessed hands.  
  
He gulped. “...Badass.”  
  
“Thank you, Enzo.” If he didn't know better, Enzo would say that pincer-to-mandible movement was... preening. “You look really cool, too.”  
  
“Yeah.” But his tone had gone flat, his bare clawed foot scuffing around in the dirt.  
  
His mood shift didn't escape AndrAIa – he'd been like that since they had lost their first game back in Mainframe – she understood it, or tried to understand it, that Mainframe had been his home. But it wasn't hers, and the loss hadn't hit her like it had him. “Cheer up, Enzo. We'll win this one.”   
  
Enzo didn't look at her. “It's not like we even need to. You can just pull me out of there again after I  _fail_  –” the bitterness in his tone was uncharacteristic. AndrAIa didn't like it one bit.  
  
“We're  _not_  going to fail,” she replied firmly. “Don't you care if this sector gets nullified?”  
  
Enzo hung his head, and didn't reply.  
  
AndrAIa tapped one pincer to the arm that carried Glitch. “You're a Guardian; use your keytool.”  
  
Enzo sighed and nodded. “Glitch: stats.” He looked up. “It looks like the User is in that building ahead. We just have to stop him from passing that street over there and getting to the next mission.”  
  
“Well, that's easy,” AndrAIa snapped her pincers shut. “Let's –”  
  
She was interrupted by a loud crash coming from within the building as the door blew off its hinges and out into the street, leaving a white-haired young man in a red coat and wielding a huge sword in one hand and a box of pizza in the other standing in its place, his stance wide and his chest gloriously bare. At that moment, swarms of other misshapen creatures akin to Enzo and AndrAIa started pouring in seemingly from nowhere, all rushing towards the man in a single mass.  
  
The User grinned. “Let's party.”   
  
Enzo and AndrAIa didn't even have time to move: the User grabbed a slice of pizza in his teeth and threw the box in the air before spinning his whole body around with his sword, flinging a swath of creatures into dust in one go. He used the momentum to somehow lift himself into the air, jumping off the wall of the nearest building and grabbing another goon by the claw to slam it into the ground, hard, before pivoting to throw the body at yet  _another_  monster behind him without even looking.  
  
But that wasn't all.  
  
Enzo thought they were saved when another creature rushed in from behind and impaled the User through the stomach, but the User wasn't even fazed, he pushed himself further onto the blade to do a sliding backwards attack with his fist to the demon's skull before ripping the metal out of the wound... which healed instantly before Enzo and AndrAIa's eyes.  
  
Then he caught the pizza box, taking a long, satisfying bite. Enzo wanted to run up, stab him in the back while his hands were full (why in the net was he eating in the middle of a fight?!), but somehow Enzo  _couldn't move_ , glued to his position until the User finished his slice of pizza. Frisket alternately growled and whined, but to no avail – he couldn't move either. “AndrAIa –” Enzo hissed.  
  
“I know,” she whispered back. “You can't move right now, it's a –”  
  
Enzo wasn't listening. This was it: they were going to be nullified. Quit without saving. This user was completely insane and they couldn't budge and oh sweet mother of the CPU the User was turning around –  
  
Enzo yelled something incoherent. Somehow he could move again, and Enzo closed his eyes and started swinging his scythe around blindly.   
  
“Enzo, watch where you're –”  
  
Oh. He hit something. Multiple times.  
  
_“Game over.”_  
  
The wave of purple passed over his body. He looked down at his hands. Not nullified? He kept waiting to hear “User wins,” but it never came.  
  
He looked at AndrAIa. She looked at him.   
  
“What was that?” Enzo waved his arms around. His circuits were nearly frying themselves from his latest near-deletion encounter.  
  
AndrAIa shook her head. “I was trying to tell you: I've seen one of those before – when the User is fighting crazy like that – in my game. It's called a cut scene.”  
  
  
**Reboot 2: The Devil Goes Down to Mainframe**  
  
“Reboot!”  
  
Enzo and AndrAIa walked through the fire and flames into what seemed to be the deepest pit of hell, complete with babes in tight leather suits and an adoring crowd of damned souls before their fiendish stage. The city around them was on flame with rock and roll and Enzo's nose curled at the distant smell of raining blood in the distance.  
  
Enzo groaned. “Oh, story of my life.”  
  
He looked down to his cloven hooves and up to his red palms, peeking out from under his shades as he wrapped a hand around his spiraled horns. “Uh. Does this mean I'm a bad guy?” Looking down at his new guitar made of what looked like a spine and ribcage, the answer would have to be yes.  
  
AndrAIa giggled. “You look funny, Enzo.” She got a slightly more modest version of the demon babes' ensembles, complete with tiny horns and an equally skeevy-looking bone bass. Enzo did have to admit she looked cute in it (the leather, not the bass. That was still skeevy). Usually her giant seashell covered her chest completely, but her current leather ensemble was a bit more... form-fitting. She had clearly grown up a bit since he last noticed. Not to say that he was looking.   
  
Behind them waited the rest of the band, a demon with steam spurting from its nostrils on vocals and  _Frisket_ , of all things, holding a pair of drumsticks in his teeth, looking for all the world like a rockin' hellhound. Just as if to prove he could to it, he did a drumroll and a two-cymbal crash. Enzo would never doubt Frisket again.   
  
The Users dropped on stage from above, wielding axes and BFGs of the musical variety, and looking halfway between puzzled and terrified.  
  
“Don't hold back,” Enzo nodded at AndrAIa, and she nodded back.  
  
“Same old song and dance.”  
  
For the first time ever in a game Enzo had played, the User game up and introduced himself. “Um... hi.” The lead guitarist stepped up and reached out one meaty paw, presumably for a handshake. “My name is Jonas, and uh, about our contract...”  
  
Enzo froze. “What?”  
  
“Well, we didn't really read the fine print...” The drummer was scratching his head.  
  
Enzo stared at the User's hand like it was some sort of strange organism reaching out to invade him. You didn't... talk to the User, you didn't  _shake hands_ , you  _battled_ , or at least competed.  
  
AndrAIa saved his hardware and stepped in for him. “Whatever you're after, you have to fight us first.” She raised her bass and strummed a fast solo on the E-string, and Frisket followed with a roll on the cymbals. “Let's go!”  
  
The crowd, already way past ready to go, started hooting at the first twang. The User nodded. “So you're a heavy metal lady, huh?” He lifted his guitar, a sassy little number shaped and painted like a lady's stockinged leg, in response. “All right, let's rock!”  
  
As soon as he put his pick to the strings Enzo's energy was running high. This one was hard, really hard – but Bob had taught him everything he knew about how to shred a mean BFG, and Enzo's frets (or his vertebrae, rather) were on fire. AndrAIa had broken off the nails on her left hand to play but was strumming up a storm with the nails on her right – those things had to be hard as  _iron_. Each band traded off parts, sliding in and out of the tune without a hitch. The metal was flying from their axes like bulls on parade, solo battling solo, just like that time at his first birthday party when Megabyte had come on stage and Bob –   
  
Megabyte.  
  
His next chord rang sour; the User hit him with an amp overload and his notes weren't hitting. The crowd booed him out and he struggled to catch up. So was this like then, back when Bob had challenged Megabyte? But wasn't the user challenging  _him_  then? So who was he in this exchange?  
  
Enzo thrust it out of mind; he had to concentrate, and he needed to win this one. Scoring a couple of power-ups on a particularly brutal riff, he followed up a broken string attack with a double-notes modifier. The Users flailed to hit all the notes but human fingers just couldn't move that fast and the crowd was screaming them offstage. Enzo slammed his final chord as the Users sank to their knees, defeated, before the ground under them opened and they fell, screaming, into a gaping well of fire. Enzo could hear their screams over AndrAIa's shout of "Game sprite mode!" They needed to get to the next system on this game, but all Enzo could ear was the scream fading all the way down, down... until they finally...  _stopped_. Enzo double-clicked his icon.  
  
The Game Cube rose, and the two of them with it before it descended again, throwing them onto a new level of the same game, a less hellish stage in front of a crowd of screaming fans.  
  
“Did you see that, AndrAIa?” He pumped a fist as he turned to his companion, ignoring the crowd. “I totally destroyed them, fragmented them, switched off their power! I mean, I was mean on that guitar, better than Megabyte, just like...”  
  
AndrAIa looked at him oddly, head a bit sideways, as if she were considering something. “Are you okay, Enzo?” She hadn't seen him like... this, like before, enthusiastic again, since they were both yanked out of Mainframe, and there was something hollow, almost mean, about his victory cheer.  
  
“I'm okay, alright?” Enzo's answer was a bit more clipped than it needed to be. “I just feel good about winning, what's wrong with that? It's not like I have anything else to feel good about.”  
  
As soon as the words were out of his mouth he regretted them. “I'm sorry, AndrAIa, I don't mean that being with you isn't –”  
  
She shook her head. “It's okay, I know,” she said, but Enzo could tell she was still hurt.  
  
“No I mean –” he stumbled over his words. “I just – I want to win, I need to win the games – we need to win, to get back home, right? When I fight in the games it feels like I'm getting somewhere, not just wasting time. I can't lose anymore, I don't want to be a loser, so... agh, you get what I mean, it's like...” He was interrupted by AndrAIa taking his hand, an action that always stopped him, drew him to relax.  
  
“It's okay,” she said. “Don't worry about it. Let's just play the game."  
  
"Reboot."  
  
  
**Reboot 3: No Justice for You**  
  
“Reboot!”  
  
Well, this was a change of pace. It seemed they'd exchanged vacant cities and the fires of hell for a tidy-looking government building. There was some kind of extra weight on Enzo's face – he patted his chin and got a fistful of silky white beard. Gee, he'd been expecting facial hair an upgrade or two in the near future, but certainly not  _this_  much. If he could get a good look at himself in the mirror, he was sure he would look absolutely ridiculous – he'd just received an awkward partial upgrade and his limbs were all gangly and he didn't have enough mass to make the scar on his eye look badass rather than sad. (Not for lack of trying.)  
  
AndrAIa looked much sharper, in a new-looking suit, a perfect haircut, briefcase and – was that a whip? When it came to weapons, they were rather short – aside from AndrAIa's whip, Enzo had only a small gavel. Frisket's reboot wasn't helping either – all he got was a funny-looking wig and a dog sweater, one he immediately started trying to pull off.  
  
“Glitch. Stats.”  
  
“What does it say, Enzo?”  
  
Enzo frowned. “It says we... have to go to the courtroom. It looks like I'm the judge and you're the prosecutor... Frisket's a... member of the jury? Okay. We win by... having the defendant found guilty.”  
  
It was certainly different, that was for sure. But hey, this would probably be easier than chasing monsters. (Or running from them.)  
  
“Is the judge supposed to talk to the prosecutor before a trial?” Enzo turned around to face a fresh-faced brunet in a blue suit with hands on his hips. A young girl in purple, foreign-looking robes stood next to him. Were these the Users? It wasn't... it wasn't what Enzo had come to expect. He felt tiny and ridiculous, standing in front of the User.  
  
“We we just chatting,” AndrAIa said, but she began moving towards the courtroom doors. “I'll see you in court.”  
  
“Wait, AndrAIa –” Enzo started, but she was gone.  
  
The man in the blue suit rubbed his chin. “What were you two talking about, anyway?”  
  
“Nothing.” Enzo pushed past the man and followed AndrAIa into the courtroom, where he was immediately greeted with with the announcement of “No dogs in the courtroom!” from the bailiff.  
  
Enzo hesitated. “But he's a member of the jury!”  
  
The bailiff pondered that one for a nano. (He didn't exactly look like the fastest engine in the program.) “Oh. Well. I guess that's okay then?” Frisket bounded merrily into the courtroom and took his seat with the jury.  
  
The large podium with the chair at the front was apparently Enzo's; it seemed like all the players had been assembled, so Enzo slammed his gavel down on the podium a few times.  
  
“This court will... uh, this court is convening. So who's the defendant?”  
  
“Psst.” AndrAIa, standing at her podium, pointed to some files she had pulled out of her briefcase. She was shaping some words with her lips, and Enzo tried to make them out –  
  
“Maxi – Maximill – ee – on Gaa.... gala... Galactica. Maximillion Galactica, yeah, his trial. So what do we do first then?”  
  
AndrAIa cleared her throat. "I call the defendant to the stand."   
  
After about a minute Enzo got it. “Oh! I think, uh, talk about the crime you committed, Mr. Defendant.”  
  
“Objection!” The User called, pointing his finger straight at Enzo. “It has yet to be proved that the defendant has committed any crime!”  
  
Enzo looked over to where the defendant was sitting, his hands clenched at his chest and a look of the utmost terror on his face. He looked completely ridiculous – gigantic purple hair, a horribly sparkly purple jacket – Enzo couldn't believe that a sprite this absurd could harm a fly. But Enzo was in this game to win, after all.  
  
“Denied.” A murmur and a bark in the courtroom. “I can say whatever I want. So what'd you do anyway, defendant?”  
  
“I didn't to anything! I had nothing against Russel and I –” Galactica looked like he was about to burst into tears.   
  
“Objection!” AndrAIa called out, pointing her finger much as the User had. “It has yet to be proven that the defendant didn't commit any crime!”  
  
“Objection sustained!”  
  
The User's jaw fell slack – the girl in the purple robes from before was tugging his jacket furiously as if trying to get his attention. “Your honour, what is the meaning of this? This is a clear case of bias in the courtroom!”  
  
“Will the defense please shut up?” Enzo was already getting tired of this, presiding over this joke of a courtroom. A game was supposed to give you a fight with a clear, black-and-white objective - get to the goal, win the trophy, kill the User. Not this. Was this guy seriously the User? With that innocent, goofy look, something far away from a demonic clown or a psychopathic escaped prisoner – this guy trusted people. He trusted the judge. Did this guy always fly by the seat of his pants, too? Was Enzo really so desperate now that he was comparing everyone he met to Bob?  
  
Enzo looked down at the gavel in his hand. They could win by having him declare the defendant guilty right now. What was even the point of this game, then, if winning was so easy?  
  
But that didn't matter.  
  
Enzo slammed the gavel down on his podium. “I declare the defendant guilty. Case closed.” He had just enough time before the game cube to see the horrified, disbelieving eyes of the man in blue and the defendant looking like he was walking to his grave.  
  
After the game had cleared, AndrAIa approached him. “You okay, Enzo?” Somehow it seemed as if she was asking that of him a lot lately.  
  
He turned around, pasted on a smile. “I'm fine. Why would anything be wrong?”  
  
AndrAIa looked thoughtful. “You seemed... upset about winning that game. Did you feel sorry for the defendant?”  
  
“Why would I?” Enzo snapped. “It's just part of a game, it's not real.”  
  
AndrAIa looked like she'd been slapped in the face. “Oh.” She turned away from him and started walking away before Enzo managed to clue in to what he'd said. Frisket's ears immediately perked up – he gave Enzo a dirty look (as much as a dog could muster) and began trotting off after AndrAIa.  
  
“Wait, AndrAIa!” But she was already running, and then gone, and Frisket with her.  
  
  
**Reboot 4: Chickenwuss**  
  
“Reboot!”  
  
AndrAIa looked around – she had thought Frisket was with her, but somehow he had disappeared as soon as he had entered the game. “Frisket?” ...nothing. But even though she couldn't see him, somehow, it  _felt_  like he was here, somewhere... she shook her head. Frisket could take care of himself, and if he wanted to come to her, he would. Maybe he'd gone back to Enzo.  
  
AndrAIa's new form was an outfit that probably would have looked better had she the figure to fill it, a long, slim black dress with a furred ruff and a plunging neckline. She reached up to touch hair that was a menagerie of trinkets – under her fingers they reminded her of seashells.   
  
She was in what looked like a luxurious bedroom, all white sheets contrasting against her pure black dress. There was a dresser on one side of the room, and she approached it – a large variety of makeup and knick-knacks were strewn across it, and there was a large mirror there as well – the reflection AndrAIa saw was like a child playing dress-up with her mother's clothing.  
  
She turned around and went back to sit on the bed. She could win this game on her own, she was confident of that, but without Enzo around... it was like there wasn't much of a point. He was the one driven to find Mainframe by winning the games, not her. This was his quest. So what was hers? Or did she even have one?  
  
AndrAIa was shaken out of her thoughts by a knock on the door. “Come in.”  
  
A soldier, holding his helmet at his side, stepped just inside the door frame and saluted her. “Sorceress Ma'am. A communications broadcast is coming in  _live_  from the TV station in Dollet!”  
  
AndrAIa stood up, eying the sprite. Their icon announced them as a game sprite, but he was treating her like an ally – not to say that was impossible, she herself could attest to that, but he addressed her like he knew her, like she was his boss, like obeying her was in his programming. It... didn't make sense, or was this a new kind of game? “What?”  
  
“I know, ma'am, it's the first time something like this has happened in the last seventeen years! International broadcast! And–” He paused for a minute as some chatter came in on the radio at his hip. “Oh Shiva, they've taken the President hostage!”  
  
The President? So was that the User – or was the User the one taking him hostage? Either way, she had to take action. “Show me this broadcast.”  
  
The soldier snapped his heels together and saluted again. “Yes ma'am, right this way ma'am!”  
  
She was escorted to the elevator and down to the first floor – the entire building was lined with soldiers and attendants – were they all there to serve her? The soldier ushered her into a room with a number of terminals and a large comm screen.   
  
“Madam Sorceress,” a woman in uniform greeted her. “We made a recording of the broadcast. I'll play it from the beginning.”  
  
A middle-aged man in a suit appeared onscreen – presumably the 'President' they'd been talking about, giving a speech of some sort – talking about reconciliation of their countries, how he only wanted peace – and then there was a bunch of yelling in the background, the camera jolted for a minute and there was Enzo holding the bastard lovechild of a gun and a sword across the President's throat. He was wearing a long gray jacket with red crosses on the sleeves, his hair gone blond and slicked back.  
  
“AndrAIa!” he called through the transmission. “If you can see this, I'm sorry! I shouldn't have said all those stupid things. I'm in a place called 'Dollet' in 'Timber', I'm waiting for you!” More shouting in the background, and the camera started moving wildly again. “Stupid – which one of you thugs is the User?!” A scream came from the video, and then a second before the transmission went dead.  
  
AndrAIa's lips formed a tight line as she turned around. Enzo was in the game, and her mission was clear. She had to make sure he was okay. “Take me to Dollet.”  
  
xxx  
  
Squeezing into the game on the opposite end of the game cube, Enzo had ended up further away from AndrAIa than he thought possible – it was like the game cube was bigger on the inside than it was on the outside.  
  
He rebooted in a city in a narrow alley away from what appeared to be the main drag. He could hear gunshots coming from nearby.  
  
There was one thing to be grateful for, at least – this time, he got a sweet weapon. Enzo gave it an experimental swing and a fire. Alphanumeric.  
  
“Geez, don't do that!” A voice came from behind him, jolting Enzo out of his thoughts. A blond sprite with a tattoo on his face stood behind him, an anxious look on his face. “You're gonna give us away! We were supposed to ambush them!”  
  
Enzo blinked. “What?” There was one other with them – a sprite with a scar across his nose and weapon like his. “Are you guys sprites from this sector?”  
  
The tattooed sprite looked confused. “What are you talking about?”  
  
Enzo frowned and consulted Glitch. “Stats.” The objective was... to completely eliminate the User party, which was.... the people in front of him? “Are you broken or something? Glitch, give me the User's objective.”   
  
_To defeat the Sorceress._  
  
“Who the hell's the Sorceress?”  
  
The guy with the scar across his nose snorted. “That's just a fairy tale.”  
  
The tattooed one waved his arms around. “Are you kidding me? She's totally real, don't you pay attention to any of the big news these days?”  
  
Enzo swore and kicked the wall. Who the hell was his opponent? And where was AndrAIa? Was she in the game, or had she left this sector?   
  
“...and yeah, some people are saying that the President of Galbadia –” the blond was blabbering on.  
  
“President?” That got Enzo's interest. Anyone who sounded important like that was probably the User.  
  
“Yeah, duh, the leader of the army we're fighting right now? I hear he's gone to Dollet because the Sorceress –”  
  
That was all the information Enzo needed. “I'm outta here.”  
  
“Wait, WHAT?” The tattooed guy started jumping up and down. “You can't do that! You're the team leader! You can't abandon the mission like this!”  
  
“Watch me.”  
  
xxx  
  
The TV station in Dollet was a disaster area by the time AndrAIa got there, full of sparking severed wires and smoking busted consoles. It seemed to be deserted, too – nothing occupied it save for the bloodstains on the floor.  
  
“Leave me here.” AndrAIa waved away her attendants.  
  
“Are you sure, ma'am, this place looks pretty dangerous –”  
  
“I can handle it. Now go.” They weren't happy about it, but they saluted, and left.  
  
Enzo had said he was waiting here, but there's no way he could still be, he had to have escaped –  
  
“AndrAIa?”   
  
She turned around to find him hunched between a burnt-out console and the wall, gunblade still clenched in his fist. He was a mess, blood all over his face, and she didn't know how much of it was his. “Enzo, are you okay?”  
  
He managed to slide himself out, wincing. “Yeah, after I took out the President, things got pretty crazy, but I managed to make them think I ran off. They're probably still looking for me.”  
  
AndrAIa held out her arm, and Enzo slid onto her shoulder, leaning his weight on her. “You killed the President? What?  _Why?_ ”  
  
“I thought he was the User.” Enzo looked down. “But the game isn't over, so I guess he's not. I don't even know what's going on anymore.” He stumbled over a broken chair leg and cursed, kicking it violently.   
  
“Didn't you get the game stats from Glitch?” AndrAIa asked.  
  
“It's no good. It's broken or something, it kept saying that these harmless game sprites were the User. Look, if it isn't the President, I think it's this person he kept talking about, they called her the Sorceress –”  
  
AndrAIa coughed, a little amused. “Uh, Enzo, I hate to break it to you, but  _I'm_  the 'Sorceress'.”  
  
“Frag it!” Enzo clenched his teeth. “I don't know. I don't know what to do.”  
  
AndrAIa was prevented from replying by the sound of the door to the communications room slamming open.  
  
Enzo froze. “Not more soldiers!”  
  
Three young people stood at the door – the sprite with the facial scar and the one with the tattoo from before, and a new girl in a yellow dress who was swinging around a pair of nunchucks.   
  
“Hold it right there, you criminals!” the girl extended her hand in the sign to 'stop'.  
  
The scarred sprite raised his gunblade, but didn't say anything.  
  
“I can't believe you, betraying SeeD!” The tattooed sprite was already bouncing on his feet, ready for a fight.  
  
One by one, the three of them rushed forward, attacking Enzo once each, tattoo sprite with his fists, the girl with her nunchucks, and the scarred sprite with his gunblade. Enzo shoved himself off AndrAIa and just stood there, taking every hit.  
  
“Stop it!” AndrAIa tried to ward them off, but found she couldn't act. She turned to Enzo. “Why aren't you doing anything?!”  
  
He spoke through gritted teeth as blood streamed down his face and over his texture mapping. “I  _can't_. It's not – my  _turn_.” He pointed at the Users. “Go! Your ATB gauge is full!”  
  
Mind blank, AndrAIa stepped forward and yelled the first thing that came to mind. “Go! GF Frisket!”  
  
Frisket burst out of the air, long-toothed, three-headed, and feral, growling and too impatient for a three-minute summon animation. He took a headlong sprint at their opponents, jaws wide open and then  _snap_  – shut.   
  
_“Game over.”_  
  
Enzo collapsed to the ground as the game left, AndrAIa rushing to his side. “Are you okay?” Injuries that registered as blood within the game had drained him to half-energy, and he was flickering wildly.  
  
“It's okay – I just... need some energy. AndrAIa, I'm s–”  
  
“You already said that, and it's okay.” She helped him up, slinging his arm over her shoulder again. “Let's get you out of here. So this is what happens when I'm not around, huh?”  
  
“Hey... I can – handle myself.”  
  
“Sure you can. Come on, don't talk so much.” With that, they left the sector, Frisket trailing behind them.  
  
**Reboot 5: We Do What We Must (Because We Can)**  
  
“Reboot!”  
  
AndrAIa felt odd. A lot bigger, certainly, and more... spread out. Her vision was all over the place, like she could see things here, and there, and over there too, and she was pretty sure she could talk in multiple places, too. But she couldn't move. Not really. Or maybe kind of, she wasn't sure yet.  
  
None of it made any sense, but that was par for the course in the games, wasn't it? “Hello? Is anybody there? Enzo? Frisket?”  
  
...No reply, or perhaps he couldn't reply. In a game like this it was probably anything goes. AndrAIa focused on trying to sort out what all of her eyeballs were seeing. There was... a whole bunch of rooms, and lots of... blocks and stuff, and tubes running around and.... there was someone standing in front of one of the rooms, waiting patiently in front of an elevator. It wasn't Enzo... so was it the User, then? AndrAIa found the right mouth. “Am I supposed to open that elevator?” The sprite nodded. She had some kind of weird gun-looking thing, but she didn't seem to be threatening anyone with it. AndrAIa opened the elevator.  
  
The sprite ascended a floor and walked into a level full of talking turrets. As the sprite tiptoed behind them, they would call things like, “I see you....” and “I won't hurt you...” before firing off a couple dozen rounds of machine gun bullets. In the overwhelming grayness of the entire game, one particular turret stood out – it was bright red. And it barked.  
  
“Frisket!” AndrAIa called, and the red turret whined. It seemed he wasn't able to move either. Oh well, she would have to go at this one alone.  
  
“So uh...” AndrAIa wasn't sure if she was supposed to be preventing the sprite from passing, but that wouldn't end the game, and it wasn't like she could do anything to actively harm the sprite, at least as far as she could tell. “Are you the User?”  
  
The sprite looked straight up at one of AndrAIa's security cameras and nodded, right before she fired her gun once at the ceiling and a second time at the floor between turret-Frisket's feet. A portal opened up at Frisket's feet and he came falling out of the ceiling to crash into the ground, howling, firing off a final burst of shots before shutting down.  
  
“Frisket!” AndrAIa cried through her loudspeakers, but the User carried on, and AndrAIa opened the elevator for her once more.  
  
The User stepped into a room with a weighted cube that appeared a bit different from the ones that AndrAIa had seen in other rooms – it was.... quite green. And it had hearts on it. The User used some kind of gravity containment field in her gun to pick the cube up.   
  
“Hey! Put me down!”  
  
“Enzo!” AndrAIa called. “You're... that cube?”   
  
“AndrAIa, thank the – no thanks to the User! I'm  _stuck_  like this and I can't move! If only Glitch weren't broken.” And lo, there was Glitch, affixed to the far side of Enzo the Companion Cube. “Dammit, I feel so... helpless. I hate being helpless!” His voice easily gave away his frustration and anger, though where exactly in the cube his voice was coming from, AndrAIa couldn't say.  
  
“It's okay, Enzo,” AndrAIa said. “I'm... I think I'm something pretty powerful, I just have to figure out what kind of powers I have. I can see and hear everything in this facility, at least. I promise I'll get us out of here.”  
  
The User was a bit careless about which way she pointed her gun and Enzo banged into a wall before dropping out of the gravity field for a moment only to be picked up again. “Ow! I – I want to do something, but I can't even reach my own icon. If we lose this one, we're beyond fragmented, AndrAIa, we're completely nullified!”  
  
AndrAIa did her best to sound as calm as possible – he was clearly rising to a state of panic. “Look, trust me, I can do this. You're not alone, okay? Just trust me.” AndrAIa was a game sprite. This was what she was programmed for: playing games. It wasn't like being a Guardian, an outsider coming in – games were... they weren't her home, but when the game cube came down, AndrAIa became enveloped in the sensation of the familiar. They would take his toll on Enzo, who had to fight to win, but AndrAIa... she just played them. She played them for him.  
  
“....Yeah. Okay. I trust you, AndrAIa.”  
  
AndrAIa scanned ahead on her security cameras – the User would have to make a portal there, and there, and then – woah, what was that. It looked like... an incinerator? Wait a second.  
  
It slowly began to dawn on her as the User drew nearer and nearer to the incinerator room. The User finally walked inside and hit a switch, opening the gaping maw of the incinerator to reveal a very, very hot fire. She ran towards the incinerator, Enzo Cube firmly supported in the hammock of her portal gun's gravity field, and –  
  
“No! Stop!”  
  
The User hesitated, and the timed switch ran out, closing the incinerator – the User would have to hit the switch again to open it.  
  
“Don't throw Enzo in there! He doesn't deserve to die in a fire! ...and I'm not being sarcastic! And this isn't reverse psychology, either!”  
  
The User fired a portal at the ceiling and then aimed her gun straight towards one of AndrAIa's security cameras, her finger on the trigger.  
  
“Don't! Don't you dare take out my security camera! I'll make you sorry, just you wait and see.”  
  
The User lowered her gun, thoughtful.   
  
Talking seemed to be working, stalling the User at least, so AndrAIa began blabbering away the first things that came to mind. “Burning things up is bad. You're a bad person and you should feel bad. The Enzo Cube is your friend! You don't want to burn him! Remember all the good times you had together, hopping through portals?”  
  
The User glanced back at the Enzo Cube, and then at the incinerator. Was that... a tear?  
  
“Look, you've been very bad, so I'm going to punish you by... uh...” Thinkthinkthink. “...Sending you to the next level!” AndrAIa had a plan. It was a good plan. Her voice dropped to a growl. “Now drop the Enzo Cube.”  
  
The User complied, and the door opened to the elevator to the next level.  
  
“That's right, just go through the doors...”  
  
SLAM.  
  
SLAM SLAM.  
  
SLAM SLAM SLAM.  
  
Just as the User was stepping into the elevator, AndrAIa slammed the elevator doors on her neck – once, twice, three times, and then three more times for good measure. The portal gun fell out of the User's hands as she collapsed to the floor of the testing facility.  
  
_“Game Over.”_  
  
As soon as the game cube was lifted clear over their heads, AndrAIa was hit with the full force of Enzo's brutal hug before he picked her up by the waist and spun her clear around. “Thanks, AndrAIa. I knew you'd pull through.”  
  
AndrAIa caught her breath as Enzo finally put her down. “You've been putting on some muscle. Last time you tried that, you dropped me.”  
  
Enzo looked sheepish. “Don't remind me of that. But seriously, thanks. You really saved my bitmap in there.” He was... happy, the most cheerful he'd been in cycles. The thing that had attracted AndrAIa to him in the first place, that... spark, it was still there. She'd make sure it wouldn't go away.  
  
“Don't worry, Enzo, I'll protect you,” she replied, half-teasing, half-sincere.   
  
Enzo was saved from having to reply to that one when Frisket came limping over towards the two of them, looking a bit faint around the ears.  
  
“Oh no, boy, what'd the User do to you?” Enzo knelt down to check out his (other) faithful companion. Frisket whined.  
  
“We'll get him charged over there.” AndrAIa pointed over towards the next sector. “Come on.”


End file.
